Happy to be home

Darren Clarke hasn't looked so comfortable on the golf course in a decade. His father Godfrey credits Clarke's recent move back home to Portrush, Northern Ireland, as the main factor behind his resurgence.

Because he's happy back home in Portrush, Darren Clarke seems more at home on the golf course. (Getty Images)

SANDWICH, England (AP) -- Not since 2000, when he slayed Tiger Woods in the final of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in California, has Darren Clarke looked so comfortable on the golf course.

Strolling along the undulating fairways of Royal St. George's, puffing away on a cigarette, Clarke was a picture of contentment all week.

"We've been with him every night this week," said Godfrey Clarke, the father of the new Open Championship winner. "He's been calm, bubbly.

"Out on the course, he looked like he was out for a Sunday four-ball."

So what's finally turned Clarke from one of golf's great underachievers to a major winner, at age 42?

Clarke senior credits a happy home life, following his son's move from London back home to Portrush, Northern Ireland, with his two kids and fiancee, Alison.

"It's left him more settled. The kids are settled, Darren's settled. And he gets on very well with Alison, who's a great girl," he said. "Between the kids being happy and him being happy, it's calmed him down. He's happy at home."

Clarke has finally got his life back together, five years after the death of his wife, Heather, from breast cancer.

At his best, he always had the attributes to go right to the top of the game.

The 4 & 3 victory over Woods, the then-No. 1 player in the world, at La Costa was Clarke's biggest win of his career at that stage. Yet for a man of his talent, he never kicked on.

"The hardest thing with Darren was that he's been slightly labeled an underachiever -- and he was," said his manager, Chubby Chandler, speaking by the side of the 18th green moments before Clarke clinched victory Sunday. "He had the talent to win a major, an Open, but it didn't happen. For it to happen like this is just amazing. Now he's no longer an underachiever.

"He was last like this when he beat Tiger in 2000. He had that grin on his face all week. That was one of those weeks when he was unbelievably calm. He's been like that again today."

Chandler, who used to play on the European Tour before becoming an agent, took on Clarke as a client in 1990, warming to the Northern Irishman the first time he met him.

"When he signed him, we knew we had a big one," said Chandler, who also has top-10 players Rory McIlroy, Graeme McDowell and Lee Westwood in his stable.

"He was the first client I'd never played with. So I played golf with him the week after, at Mere in Cheshire (in northwest England). I thought to myself, 'This is going to be great. I've got a business here.' Even if it was just me, him and my secretary for 20 years, I knew he was going to make me more money than I made as a player."

But the rewards have only come in drips and drabs.

There were a few big pay checks -- the Accenture Match Play victory earned Clarke $1 million -- but never as many as there should have been. Now a major winner with an exemption to the next 20 Grand Slam tournaments, there could well be a belated rush.